Unofficial news and tips about Google

August 25, 2008

Google Suggest, Enabled by Default

As anticipated, Google Suggest will be finally available at google.com. "Today we're excited because Google Suggest will be graduating from Labs and available by default on the Google.com homepage. Over the next week, we'll be rolling this out so that more and more of you will start seeing a list of query suggestions when you start typing into the search box," says Jennifer Liu from Google.

Launched in 2004 as part of the Labs, Google Suggest is an innovative feature that auto-completes a query using a dynamic list of popular queries. "As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. This is similar to Google's Did you mean? feature that offers alternative spellings for your query after you search, except that it works in real time. For example, if you type bass, Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include bass fishing or bass guitar. Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like prog, Google Suggest might offer you refinements like programming, programming languages, progesterone, or progressive. You can choose one by scrolling up or down the list with the arrow keys or mouse."

The feature has been added to many Google services: Google Toolbar, YouTube, Google homepages for high-end mobile phones and for languages that use a non-Latin alphabet. Firefox users already have Google Suggest in the search box.

Other search engines tested similar features. After Ask.com introduced search suggestions last year, Yahoo refined the idea and launched the best interface for suggestions: Search Assist. Unlike Google Suggest, Yahoo's interface is more subtle and it's not limited to prefix-based suggestions.

Google Blog suggests three reasons why auto-complete can be useful: it helps you formulate queries, the feature shows alternative spellings for your query and it saves keystrokes. Despite the advantages, some users will find it annoying because it disables the auto-complete feature from their browsers and it might interfere with their typing. To permanently disable Google Suggest, click on "Do not provide query suggestions in the search box" at the bottom of Google's preferences page or use these advanced tips.

168 comments:

That's odd. It's not enabled by default for me and if I go on to the settings page and switch to the "Provide query suggestions..." radio button and hit Save Preferences, it just ignores me and leaves it on "Do not provide..."

From what I see, Google Suggest is only enabled for the homepage and its state is not correctly reflected in the preferences page. The option "Do not provide query suggestions in the search box" is activated even if Google Suggest is enabled. If you click on "Save Preferences", Google Suggest will be disabled.

If you don't see the "query suggestion" section, clear your browser's cache and cookies, then restart the browser and try again.

I see it too often here in Finland. I really think it's on my way all the time. Google can't read my thoughts. I know what I'm looking for. This isn't "Google" anymore, because it isn't simple, it's more like Yahoo! now.

I couldn't agree more about how annoying this idiotic feature is. Problem is, I have my erase all my history, ect. feature enabled on Firefox, so now every single time I restart the browser, I have to go into Google preferences to disable this inane query suggestion feature. Any suggestions how to have it both ways, like I used to have in the good old days before the ruined the search page, the best thing about Google? If it ain't broke...

I find this query suggest feature to be annoying, unhelpful, and manipulative. It's trying to steer me where I may not want to go. Google, make the default setting off. Like the user above I delete all my cache, history, cookies, etc. in Firefox, so there is no easy way to disable this unwanted, intrusive, and distracting "feature."

Now that most browsers have a search box, you can simply bypass Google's homepage and use the built-in search box. Firefox also includes suggestions, but you can disable them by right-clicking in the search box and unchecking "Show suggestions".

At least for now, Google Suggest is enabled only for the (classic) homepage.

I really HATE this feature - it is intrusive and annoying. Why not have it disabled by default, and include an enable option on the start page for those (very few) who might want it. It is extremely inconvenient to have to navigate to the preferences page in order to disable it, in order to then return to the search page to try to conduct what should be a quick search. A truly obnoxious feature.

Just spent two hours searching for the virus responsible for this abhoration/abomination only to find out my buddies at Google did this? Get a clue...leave well enough alone! The biggest selling point of your search engine WAS its simplicity. Mucking it up with this unsolicited addition bodes the question, "Was Yahoo this bad"?

guess what google, this feature is the reason I stopped using yahoo search, and hmmm, yahoo isn't doing too good now. This is obnoxious big brother stuff. do they think we are so stupid we don't know what we are looking for? It's especially annoying to firefox users who set their browsers to dump cookies when closing.

Here's what you need to do if you set Firefox to delete cookies when you close it. Open the Settings dialog, go to the Privacy tab, click on "Exceptions" and add google.com to the list of allowed domains. The result is that your Google cookie won't be deleted when you close Firefox.

I vote NO on Google Suggest and want it off by default. I don't care what other people pick when I'm looking for something. My choices are often not popular, and this just ads tracking cookies that you require me to keep! I always erase all cookies after sessions. It is also annoying and an invasion of privacy which I expect from Google. I JUST LOVE GIGABLAST SEARCH which has none of that nonsense!

To avoid the google crapware suggest, use the "i feel lucky" page http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&aq=f&oq=You get all the old functionality minus the "i feel lucky" button and suggest crap feature.

Wow, so many folks, myself as well, hate this "helpful" feature. At the very least, Google should make disabled the default. Of course the best is to get rid of that junk feature completely. Why do they have to screw with a good thing. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I HATE this feature and it never stays unchecked in my preferences. I did however find a fix you can apply. Make your homepage this http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0I hate the way they force us to use crap like in Vista, Google and firefox 3 now even sucks

This is just another annoying "feature" designed by Google to help the few idiots that cannot think for themselves. This is very annoying. I agree with others, time to find a new search engine that leaves me the hell alone so I can do my work in peace. At least set this abomination to disabled by default!!

An extreme distraction on the screen. I'm not a novice. I'm typing fast and I don't want @#$% popping up all over the screen. Get clue you narrow minded liberals at google. It should be OFF BY DEFAULT. Idiots. Clearing cookies resets the autosuggest OFF setting. Clearing cookies is potentially a frequent operation. Again, idiots. No usability testing.

It's not "innovative", it's driven more by novice marketing concepts, and it's an extreme distraction on the screen for advanced and power users that type fast anyway. I supposed now we're going to need "suggestion blockers" and new apps written to block and constantly turn OFF all the bandwagon novice suggestion CR@P that is coming out of the woodwork.

Seems to me google keeps p1ssing off a myriad of IT professionals who have to manage 100s of PCs. Google 'suggest' will keep coming back no matter how hard they try to keep turning it 'off' - I predict there will be apps or services written to block and constantly turn off google's 1/2 a$$ed present and future 'innovations'.

This feature serves two purposes. It fills in the blanks according to what Google desires. It's also for people who can't type or spell very well.

I can type. I can spell. I could care less what the CEO's at Google want to suggest. I find I'm using search engines less and less. I know what web sites I'm interested in, and I tend to stick to those. All the Flash whore and pop-up sites are also a major drag. My home page is homemade. It has homade banners to all the sites I regularly go to. If I need to do a search - I use Internet Explorer's search bar. Screw the Google page all together.

I do research for a living. I used to use Google all the time. But I often type into the search box while I'm thinking, while I'm figuring what search terms I should use to get best result. This feature is so distracting & annoying I frequently lose my train of thought, my eye is being pulled to words that have nothing to do with my needs. For security purposes, I clear my history, cookies, etc. several times a day. So every time I have to go into the Google preferences & change it. Why not have it the other way? If someone WANTS query suggestions, let them ask for it. I'm sure they added this to make more money, it pulls up a lot of paying customers, and God knows Google execs don't make enough money yet. I would encourage all other search sites to gear up & take advantage, now is a great time to steal Google eyeballs.

thanks for the suggestion http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0 but it doesnt set the other preferences I like: only English, no fiiltering results, etc. Is there another way to get to those? By the way, IE no longer keeps my google preferences (although it used to), but firefox does...

I'm new to the internet and computers. I like the google toolbar but don't want suggest on the search. Every time I remove it it pops back on. Now with trying to get rid of it I've made a suggest box come up under the address bar that I'll have to find how to remove. Grrrr!

I agree with the majority here – that the Google Query Suggest feature is terrible. It should be eliminated as a default feature. When I reset Safari each day, several times, as a matter of habit, I always then have to go to Google preferences to turn it off. What an irritating imposition on users!

I agree too - I have two google sign in names on a shared family iMac running safari; I often work with my kids searching homework stuff through one of these accounts, but I also do research on human sexual culture and sexual diversity and without the filters on: the site prompts that come up are not always ones I want them to see! Plus I know where I am going! The really bad problem is that Safari (or google) doesnt seem to accept the 'do not provide query suggestions in search box' even when clicked and saved as a preference. Its driving me mad.

This is a terrible idea and can very easily lead younger individuals to search results they have no reason to be shown. Just try searching for "how to eat a starfruit" and just look at the garbage you get when you get as far as "how to eat".

I'd very much like to have the option to turn this feature of. My kids use my computer too, they also use google and youtube. I would very much like being able to tell a program what it should & shouldn't remember. I don't want google or any other firm in control.

The Query Suggestion feature is impossibly aggravating: the fact that I have to disable it every two (or so) weeks is infuriating. It's the equivalent of a pop-up ad, and is distracting. If this feature persists, I will look into other search engines, and homepages. It's one thing to offer an optional feature, another thing to force it on users. It's mad me angry enough to hunt down ways to let the 'Do No Evil' company know exactly how much I despise this feature.

I want the query suggestions OFF, disabled and PERMANENTLY. Google won't let me do this. it keeps defaulting to providing suggestions. It's embarassing to have a client at my computer see everything that I've searched on ... including sometimes the client himself!!

I found the answer! At least for Safari on MacOX.First, there are two different problems here, one is the auto query suggest drop down menu, the one that has the number of searches that appear next to the search term. Those are "courtesy" of the Google guys. The other one is where it automatically enters a search term you have used in the past.

The first one is easy -- just go to Google Preferences and scroll down to Query Suggestions and select "Do not". (Note the cookie enable requirements)It's the second problem that was harder to figure out . I tried removing history, clearing cache, and a few other things, but here's what worked:I went to the Safari menu, and to Reset Safari. I selected Remove Other Autoform fill text and hit Reset.

I was afraid that it would have removed the function of filling in certain online forms for me, but it didn't. What it did was stop filling in past search terms before I could even finish typing them. Problem solved!

this is crazy! i keep having to "reset" my preferences day after day after day after day. this is completely unacceptable. why have a preference area if your preferences don't get saved until you change them again? when is google going to get a clue and fix this obvious "BUG"?

This setting is saved in a cookie so it will reset if you delete your cookies. Some browsers have an option to clear the cookies when you close them, but they also have the option to define exceptions (for example, in Firefox click on Tools/Options/Privacy tab/Exceptions button, while in Opera you can define site-level preferences by going to google.com, right-clicking and selecting "Edit site preferences").

I clean all my cookies, so I can't remove permanently this annoing feature. Google is my favourite search engine, I use it from many years and I don't want change, but query suggestions makes me nervous.Please turn off by default.

This "feature" sucks, almost made me quit using Google. The main problem for me is that it drops down OVER the "Search" button! Who thought of that? I used to type then hit search with the mouse; with this "feature" I could no longer do it. Turning it off would not turn it off!

Thanks to Ionut Alex Chitu (way up towards the top of this page) it looks like I can also get the original, better (IMHO) search by default.

IE never remembers my Google preferences and no matter how many times I reset the preferences, the stupid drop-down suggestion list reappears.

I don't bookmark as much as I used to, since it takes awhile to organize the bookmarks and the list becomes unruly. I like typing something in the Google search box and letting autofill suggest things that I've previously searched for and selecting from that list.

Sweden, here. I'm dropping Google as well. This search suggest feature is counterproductive and annoying. What smartass(es) att Guu(r)gle are guilty of letting this stupid idea all the way to implementation.It kinda reveals what they think of the average person on this planet.

Bye, you Google Morons! At least make it OFF by default. I'm cleaning cookies and history after each surfsession like many others.

I hate the google suggest feature. it suddenly appeared abut a month ago and I CANNOT turn it off. None of the above suggestions work. I thought it was me and something crazy with my computer so at least I now have the comfort of knowing it's all of us. We've been worked over by Google. Time to go back to yahoo.

You should probably know that all major search engines have the suggest feature enabled by default (Google, Yahoo, Live Search, Ask). The feature can be deactivated in the preferences page by changing a value in a cookie.

>>The feature can be deactivated in the preferences page by changing a value in a cookie. <<

Yes, but it won't STAY turned off. Google keeps returning to its default preferences, including "safesearch' filtering. I think the verb 'to google' should now include connotations of overbearing, repressive, thought police. A la "the preferred search enginge of the Communist Replublic of China"If we all start using 'google' with a negative connotation, prehaps they will get the message.

what makes the google suggestions annoying is that they prevent your past search query terms from popping up. If I commonly search for "scientology kills" for example and I start typing sci.. then firefox will suggest "scientology kills" because I've searched it in the past. And I like that. But now with google overriding that, all these other unrelated searches pop up instead.

Today I noticed I cannot turn off "google search" from the Search Preferences any longer. Is there now a new method to do so? If not, it looks like I will be using "google search" to find a new search browser. ANNOYING!

1. (The official way) The feature can be disabled in the "preferences" page (the "query suggestions" section) and it will stay disabled until you delete the Google "PREF" cookie. If you automatically delete your cookies when you close a browser, there's an option to add exceptions for google.com (Firefox has a button titled "Exceptions" in the Options/Privacy/Cookies section).

I rather enjoy this feature, it sometimes helps me form a more coherent search term that yields more results, and it also reduces the number of keystrokes (since it finishes words for me even if I've never searched them before)). If you're "distracted" by a simple list of suggestions then I think you have ADD.

If you google a website every time you go to it (and thus are annoyed because google doesn't suggest the website name like it used to), shouldn't you just have that website bookmarked anyway?

This is horrible.. why do we want to know what some 14 year old boys are typing into google... DO NOT TYPE IN 'HOW DO I....' AND SEE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE TYPING IN...It's not very professional, we don't want to see what everyone else in the world is asking about. ...

I'm getting sick of Google altogether, the bundling of the toolbar, the ad for the toolbar on the homepage, and now this Suggest option. Yes, we can circumvent it by using the amended homepage, but the fact is, Google has become another massive corporation and I simply don't trust them anymore. Plus, Google assumes that because our web server is in a certain country, that me and my PC are in that country (I'm not), so things like Facebook default to the wrong locale.Plus, if I'm shopping online, it can be very awkward to specify that I only want results from a specified country or in a specified currency. Searching for items from British stores *only* always brings up tons of results from US stores. And searching for only US stores is even worse.

Yahoo's no better, of course, part of another conglomerate, and they have their own horrible toolbar covertly bundled into all kinds of software.

I'm off to look for a new search engine right now.

Oh, for any UK users, the amended Google link works for us too. Instead of usinghttp://www.google.co.uk/ you can usehttp://www.google.co.uk/webhp?complete=0

i need help, i try to disable this suggestion feature. i do this, save preferences but then again every time i search something on google i get all possible suggestions (things i ever searched on my pc). i tried to enable the cookies in all possible ways, restarted my pc several times but still i receive all suggestionswhat can i do?!

@Anamaria:Don't confuse Google Suggest with autocomplete, a feature of your browser that stores previous entries from web pages. I don't know what browser you use, but this feature can usually be disabled from the options/preferences dialog. Use Google to search for [disable autocomplete internet explorer] or something similar.

I truly hate this unwelcome 'feature'. I've used Google for many years, even coining the phrase "Google knows everything" in my home and office but unless Google change it so it's DISABLED by default then I'll be using a different search engine in the future.

I have cookies disabled on my PCs as a privacy and security measure and to stop the machines getting clogged with unwanted files, yet the only way I can keep this useless, irritating, feature turned OFF is if I have cookies turned ON! What sort of weird logic came up with that?

I`ve used Google for years and this is the first time Query Suggestions has turned up. I can really see how this can be useful if we ever stop thinking for ourselves. Everyone is saying, "Oh gee, this is so annoying and irritating." Do you think Google doesn`t know that? Do you think Google cares? It`s just more advertising folks. Companies pay Google so that their junk shows up in your searches. The fact that query suggestions is on by default is a good clue this is an advertising tactic and not a service. We are so bombarded by ads everyday it has become part of our culture. What surprises me though, is we still have the option to turn query suggestions off.

Google sucks. Got too big for its own feetThe following works. http://www.google.co.uk/webhp?complete=0 but if Google decide to change things again, it's time for all good men to change search engine. Goodbyall (Oops ! google for short)

Google has described Google Suggest as a feature. A feature is something good. This "Suggest" is a pain. You can't disable it, every time you open your browser it's there. The auto-complete option is much better. Time to use a different search engine.......

I hate this. Sometimes even the option section is omitted from page and you cannot deselect. I spent an hour yesterday messing about trying to get a page to load with the option still there. I'm finding this whole scenario increasingly irritating. Google get a grip!

Me too, it's insane. Time to "search" for another search provider. The first post on this matter was 26 August 2008 and as of today, 05 April 2009, the annoying "suggestion" function of is still "defaulted" by Google, nothing has been fixed. I use IE8. This is a sign that Google does not listen to users.

#StupidConsumer, if what you said is true, that Google keeps using "auto suggestion" on purpose, there is no other good reason than this for users to move to another search provider. As someone said Google is too big and too ignorant to listen to users. In any case, there is only one Google and billions of users in the world. Can Google keep frustating users from leaving in droves? Google has it hay days, now it probably time for a new players or re-emmerging players to stand up!

I hate it!!! It is commercialization in the worst form. But as usual, Google could care less what the public is crying for, whatever maximizes profits is their only goal, period. Don't look for this to go away, it is here to stay forever or until we can all find another search outfit that listens to its users and tries to satisfy their needs. I don't want your advise, Google, keep your inane suggestions off my screen!! Yeah, right, like you care, hunh?

The worst "feature" I've ever seen. For God's sake, and for the sanity of the MAJORITY, keep the feature turned off by default. As for its apologist "Alex Chitu" - I've got various browsers and various settings. You suggesting the various ways to "avoid" this feature just proves the point. They have no business imposing it on EVERYONE by default. Unless, of course, they are just trying to persuade people to LEAVE GOOGLE altogether.

I was just trying to help those who don't like the feature. Obviously, most of the people who comment don't like the change, since those who like it don't feel the need to provide feedback. Google Suggest has been launched in 2005 and Google had enough time to collect feedback from its various incarnations: Google Toolbar, Google Suggest extension etc. I'm not its apologist, but I find it useful in many cases and this kind of search is quickly becoming a common place: you'll find suggestions in Firefox, Internet Explorer 8, Yahoo Search, Live Search, Ask.com, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Wikipedia, YouTube.

I agree that it's an intrusive pain. Like a few have suggested, I've set my homepage to the following to disable the feature without bothering with Google's annoying tracking cookie. Just substitute the ".co.uk" part according to the country you're working from. Works for me.

Has anyone at google considered how inappropriate 'suggest' is for children. The idiot who came up with the idea that the default setting for 'suggest' should be enabled should be sacked. He obviously has no idea how much damage this is doing to Google's reputation.

@Anon:Google Suggest already filters some "inappropriate" queries. Type "fuc", "por", "xx" and you'll notice that Google doesn't display the most popular words that start with those characters. Google doesn't always do a good job at filtering queries, but it's difficult to decide what to remove.

As I mentioned in a previous comment, this is already a standard feature in most browsers and search engines, but you can always disable it if you don't think it's useful enough. Typing Volkswagen, deoxyribonucleic, Antananarivo, spectrophotofluorometrically is pretty difficult without autocomplete.

I hope Google doesn't change it's classic look. I really like the plane Google home page, nice and clean easy on the eyes,with no bells and whistles.I have tried other search engines, like Y*****; but keep coming back to Google. One of my Programing professors said it very well, "K I S S" (keep it simple stupid). The Google Suggest is a nice function, works well with a search, by saving a few key strokes.

I dont like the change of google query suggestion Hope they go back to the way it was . It was getting anoying to go back every time i clean my cookies I suggest to go to a diffrent search engine like maybe http://www.dogpile.com/ is not bad . I use IE and i dont clean the cookies with in the browser no more i use a free program call (ccleaner) http://www.ccleaner.com/ Went instaling program dont install yahoo toolbar . Go to the last icon at the bottom right option then open the cookies tab . move google to cookies to keep work very good it wont delete that cookie. Good luck Boys and girls

Ernie

By the way yahoo search its doing the samething has google in the seach box suggestion of word with results poping up i hate it

This is the first mistake Google has made. I disable the Google suggest feature and then next time I log on, its back again. It is extremely annoying and the sort of thing that will make me look elsewhere. I loved Google's simplicity, until now. If they still have their finger on the pulse of their customers, they will make "disable" the default very soon. If not, I'll be moving to another search engine.

When a company thinks they know what their customers want, better than the customer, they are on the slippery road of decline.

Alex, yes it may be true that people who like this feature are not posting. But it could also be true that people who don't understand the implications of this feature in terms of allowing people see what you searched, are also not posting. This leaves the 100+ posts here against the feature. When you have people feeling compelled to take the time to complain about a feature, a product, a service, whatever,you know there is a problem. this is marketing 101. Google is just not listening.

"Done" - riiight. Idiot. A myriad of ADVANCED USERS access and use multiple computers EVERY DAY and THE ANNOYING google search suggest keeps 'COMING BACK' everywhere. Every mf@$#% time cookies are cleared. Every mf@$#% time you logon to a different computer or with a different username or if you are an admin and you access/troubleshoot dozens of computers every day. Get a clue.

As many mentioned, "http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0" will work to avoid the annoying google autocomplete. But note, it doesn't actually change your preferences and save them in a cookie. This means that afterwards, if you go back to "http://www.google.com", say, maybe because it's easier to just type it sometimes, the annoying autocomplete is still there. So, the proposed solution is partial or temporary at best.

Hey, here's another thought. Google has become the new 800 lb gorilla. Google and Microsoft, the other 800 lb gorilla have been slugging it out lately. I would suggest that the Google autocomplete is interfering with the proper functioning of the Microsoft browser. Instead of complaining here, you should all be e-mailing Microsoft and prodding them to come up with a solution. Maybe a little old fashioned competition would be good for both of them, and us, the consumers. What better way to remind both of them that they're not the only game in town.

It doesn't work for me anymore too, what's going on? Everytime when I type a letter it does say Loading from client1.google.com in left bottom of my browser (firefox) for a little moment but I don't get any dropdown @ the input..I've tested it on multiple pcs and browsers and all gone?@ preferences I got suggestions enabled.

microzoftsucks@live.com$100 in your paypal account to the first person who can tell me how to disable this disease on the internet that is search suggestion. Now they have that piece of crap on ebay too.I dont EVER want ANY suggestions on any website and i want them ALL disabled by default, im not so stupid like you people who like it, i know what im searching for, or so lazy that i cant type the rest of my search words.

This suggestion feature absolutely sucks!! The problem is: does anyone think the programmers at Goodle actually read our posts? It's like talking to the wall. And, I'm not going to use http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0 as my home page. I have a homepage I like and I'm not going to have Google or anyone else dictate to me what I should or should not use. If I want my toddlers to learn about sexual positions, I'll just let the suggestion feature continue. They should be sued for this!!!

FINALLY found out how to turn off Google Suggest. Searched for many hours and it's really simple after all. I'm, using FF browser and not iGoogle as homepage but not sure if that matters. I tried going to google.com webhelp complete but that did nothing. I just found that if you RIGHT click on the big letter G in the google search box than unclick show suggestions and IT WORKS!!!!!! Hope this helps everyone and Anonymous who posted on June 16, I will take the $100 if this works! Just kidding, only too glad to try to help keep the internet free from tyranny. Would still like to get away from Google though. Any ideas for a better search engine?

The MAJORITY of people from online polls want this kind of search suggestion crap turned OFF. Do you like Google's search suggestion - yet it persists and keeps coming back. Can't turn search suggestions off by any option in youtube. What does that tell you about the mentality of that place (google).

It keeps coming back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on. I turn it off and after several months of happy surfing, it comes back on.

This auto suggest was also driving me nuts. I'd set the preferences not to have it then it would go back again. But one of the suggestions above did solve it. http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0 Set this as your home page. So far it has worked great. Just never type www.google.com or you will have the auto suggest again.

http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0I will try this. I think GOOGLE is violating their own rules by making my web browser show their advertising customers!If one of us broke a silly adsense rule, they would be all OVER us, but THEY can keep forcing us to read business ads in our basic searches.,

I hate this feature! Google was a favorite search engine until they pull this BS. I don't care what other people are searching for, just turn this feature off by default! Hope whoever invented this got fired!

I also hate this feature. It keeps resetting back when I change it and logging me out of iGoogle after that. It is horribly annoying and I'm seriously considering a new portal if this doesn't get fixed.

Same situation as Larry above. This happens about 3-4 times per year. Does Google think people won't notice? or will passively eventually just be worn down and accept it if they Google keeps switching YOUR preferences to THEIR preferences? It feel creepy, intrusive, and aggressive to me. I'll USE them until I find something superior then drop them with less thought than they give their users. Here's to squandering brand loyalty, Google - cheers!

This just happened to me today (5/8/10), although I have been using http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0 for some time now. How I escaped the wrath and was a golden child up to now is beyond me but MANY, MANY THANKS TO:

Blogger Alex Chitu said on February 16, 2009 12:03 AM PDT:To summarize, here are some options to remove Google Suggest:

3. Install AdBlock Plus in Firefox and add this filter:http://*.google.*/complete/search?*

THIS DOES IT FOLKS! I tried each and every suggestion here, plus many, many more from other searches. I tried several Add-ons to Firefox, editing the HOSTS file (scary for some), and several script alterations, but in the end I simply added the filter http://*.google.*/complete/search?* to my existing Adblock Plus Add-on (doesn't everyone have Adblock Plus?) Isn't Adblock Plus the one main reason we ditched IE in the first place???!!! Don't have it? Get it! After all, are you still using a rotary dial phone?

All in all, a "Happy Ending". No, not that type of "Happy Ending" but the more and more I think about it, beating G$$GLE at their own game is, in a way, almost better! :) Well.....almost.

If google's cpu-intensive mouseover-landmine user interface "inventions", which are an annoying result of rich, bored developers and managers sitting around with nothing to do, and not by user request, if such "inventions" were turned OFF by default, then no-one would use them. What does that tell you about the arrogant mentality of that place. Let-alone the FACT that there are scarce UI LAYOUT and POSITION options with any google product.

As an alternative to Alex Chitu's suggestion to Edit Site Preferences to allow Google cookies to persist, you can Edit Site Preferences to turn off Javascript. This turns off Search Suggest and lots of other annoyances, reduces load times and generally returns Google to a fast and simple search engine that does only what you tell it to do.

You need to do this for www.google.com and for your local country-specific variant (mine is www.google.co.uk). By specifying the "www." you only disable script for searches, not for Google Maps or Gmail.

Turn on Google InstantYou can turn on or enable Google Instant by accessing your search settings under the gear icon on any search results page; it gives 404 error. I have also saved its screenshot but no option to upload the file.

After taking 6 months to learn how, wiping out google from working at all and disabling this horrid feature on yahoo, ask and bing, having to fully reboot my computer after a MTBF event. All I or anyone else wants is a simple browser auto updated add-on that rips this annoying and useless feature from every search engine by default. Without the need to re-write script, change about:config files and using cookies that disappear on log off.

I personally don't feel like doing the work all over again to modify on by default to off by script. So...Anyone up to doing the world a favor, earn the accolades of the masses and becoming the Hero of all by creating a multi browser add-on to kill auto suggest? Or version that doesn't have the "Idiot" features yet retains the capabilities?You will be loved by millions.

I've been a Googler since 1999. I, along with many others, helped Google become the giant it is today. As an expression of their gratitude, Google has decided to stray from its most prized strength... simplicity. Instead they now inundate us with 3 features that drive us insane: Suggest, Preview and Instant. The only users who benefit from these forced features are the lazy, the unimaginative, the indecisive, poor spellers and the chronically bored. We don't need to be told what we're looking for. If I want to see a page, I will click to visit it. Moreover, many of us are on expensive and limited data plans through our net providers so not only do we not care to waste bandwidth, we also are working at slower speeds which makes these bullshit features glitch too. Unlike the few people who enjoy your idiotic features, I have sh*t to do and these annoyances prevent me from getting it done. Enough is enough. Google has apparently forgotten about us... I'll be using alternatives so I can forget about them and their stress-inducing services.